To read a poem has gradually become part of my professor persona. It started with "What Teachers Make" that Doctor 0th Draft sent to me six summers ago. The class was a general teaching methods course for students who already held a subject area Master's degree. Something about the group or my mood induced me to read/perform that poem. Later, I added a few more Taylor Mali's. And then when I saw him in person, from the front row no less, I was ready to perform more of his works. To subsequently see him live in NYC alongside some older guy named Billy Collins changed me forever.
On Monday I was the afternoon session for non-education doctoral students from across campus as part of a two-week institute about becoming an effective instructor. It's nice program that fills a vital need. My topic: Learning Theories. And on their first day. So I rolled out about a ten different theories and we discussed them and considered how we might apply different theories to help us better understand teaching we've done or experienced. With two minutes remaining, I closed with Schoolsville by Billy Collins (and without giving a quiz on the material). They enjoyed it and maybe I'll be that professor on the first day who talked about learning theory and read a poem.
Along the way, I am learning more about poetry and appreciating its power. Here is an excerpt from an exceptional essay by Jane Hirschfield about poetry:
I am too much of a novice to fully appreciate the significance of her claims. After all, I am acquainted with all of twenty-some poets. Nevertheless, I admire the qualities of a force that transforms people. I appreciate the utility of something that is both catalogue and tool for discovery. In these ways, poetry is so much like science — and yet also so different. At best, I know enough about poetry to notice the joking references, having long believed that catching the humor in a situation is a good indication of being relatively well-informed about a topic.
Today has started out well: I read a Science News article that reveals that primates who dig in the sand are ambidextrous: the holes are symmetrical. This suggests that their brains are not yet differentiated by hemispheres. However, there are indications that there is handedness among apes when performing fine motor skills. That adds to the scientific catalogue and demonstrates inquiry as a tool for discovery. Meanwhile, I realize I need to dig more into Jane Hirschfield's poetry ... and along the way have already discovered that Salon offers "Poetry for the Rest of Us" which leads me to George Evans and his poem about a comet. More cataloging, more discovery. Moving closer to achieving fullest meaning and fullest being.
On Monday I was the afternoon session for non-education doctoral students from across campus as part of a two-week institute about becoming an effective instructor. It's nice program that fills a vital need. My topic: Learning Theories. And on their first day. So I rolled out about a ten different theories and we discussed them and considered how we might apply different theories to help us better understand teaching we've done or experienced. With two minutes remaining, I closed with Schoolsville by Billy Collins (and without giving a quiz on the material). They enjoyed it and maybe I'll be that professor on the first day who talked about learning theory and read a poem.
Along the way, I am learning more about poetry and appreciating its power. Here is an excerpt from an exceptional essay by Jane Hirschfield about poetry:
Before reading a good poem, we are one kind of person, after reading it, we are another. Poetry is description, catalogue, memory, but it is also an instrument of discovery and transformation. It is telescope, magnet, well bucket, radar, and smelting furnace at once: a means for the self to arrive at its own fullest being and its own fullest meaning. This is true for the individual and true for the species, the culture.
I am too much of a novice to fully appreciate the significance of her claims. After all, I am acquainted with all of twenty-some poets. Nevertheless, I admire the qualities of a force that transforms people. I appreciate the utility of something that is both catalogue and tool for discovery. In these ways, poetry is so much like science — and yet also so different. At best, I know enough about poetry to notice the joking references, having long believed that catching the humor in a situation is a good indication of being relatively well-informed about a topic.Today has started out well: I read a Science News article that reveals that primates who dig in the sand are ambidextrous: the holes are symmetrical. This suggests that their brains are not yet differentiated by hemispheres. However, there are indications that there is handedness among apes when performing fine motor skills. That adds to the scientific catalogue and demonstrates inquiry as a tool for discovery. Meanwhile, I realize I need to dig more into Jane Hirschfield's poetry ... and along the way have already discovered that Salon offers "Poetry for the Rest of Us" which leads me to George Evans and his poem about a comet. More cataloging, more discovery. Moving closer to achieving fullest meaning and fullest being.
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